Christmastide reflections

It is four o'clock in the morning on the sixth day of Christmas, and I am up - against my will and against my better judgment.  I can't sleep, and I can't figure out why - but as I've been sitting here, reading, thinking, trying to get past my frustration, I have realized some things.

Christmas, as I've shared before, has always been my favorite time of year.  Even before I truly understood the gift that this holiday is, there was something about the lights and the quietness and the colors and the smells and the hope (even on an ocean coast) of snow - that was simply magical.  Mysterious.  Right.  It was special; it was different; it was something I waited for all year.

I was so hopeful this year that the magic and the mystery would still capture my soul - and it has, in moments, here and there.  But the pervading sense of joy and peace and happiness that filled my soul on December 23rd has gotten lost somewhere in the craziness of the past few days.  The rest of the world has moved on past Christmas, and to a degree, I feel like I've been moving on right along with it.

But I'm not of that world, and as I've come in the past half hour to realize all the ways in which I've forgotten that this week, I have made a decision.  I refuse to be swept by that tide any longer.  It is Christmastide yet, and it is only half over.  There is still waiting and watching to be done.   There is still worship to offer.  Praise to bring.

And so here I am, at what is now almost five o'clock in the morning, watching and praying, enjoying the lights on my tree and a cup of chai, and thanking God that He's stopped me in my tracks for this moment.  I am, at last, putting down all the things that have distracted me all week, and am instead kneeling in my heart beside a manger, in awe of the tiny, quiet, perfect miracle that was actually the beginning of the greatest thing that has ever happened in the whole world.  The very Son of God was born - to us, the Scripture says.


To us.   For us.   With us.


He was here.

He is here.

...and He is coming back.


In this quiet moment, there is nothing more real or more true, and I am filled with gratitude and wonder.

Merry Christmas, friends.

advent journeys: peace

How many times have I said it?
"Peace be with you."
"And also with you."
"Amen."

It occurred to me today that these words from the liturgy are so much more than just words. They are a blessing, and a heartfelt prayer. Made in the image of the God who speaks life in being, who said "Let there be light!" and there was light, our words have power. When we speak peace over each other, we are declaring it to be so. And when we say "amen," we are asking God to let it be so. "This thing we just said, God - this blessing, this wish for peace for our brother, or our sister - please. Let it be so. Let them be at peace." At rest. Healed. Whole. Well. Completely and utterly their ontological selves. Who they were always meant to be.

I haven't always thought about it that way. But it is what we're saying.

The last reading in Beth A. Richardson's The Uncluttered Heart this past week was about being a shalom bringer - the kind of person who brings the fullness of God's peace to people - and I'm pretty sure I met one yesterday.

I tend to steer clear of the holiday crowds, but my laptop bag got swiped last week, and with it (unless it is buried in the untidy-ness of my room) the cable that attaches my camera to the computer. So I went to buy a new one.

An older gentleman, new to the store and a bit overwhelmed by the phone ringing and all the people asking for help, nevertheless went out of his way to help me. After looking everywhere he could think of, he found someone else and asked him about it. "Oh," came the answer. "We don't carry that kind of cable here. You might try this other store." The gentleman who'd been helping me look for the past 5 minutes turned to me and said genuinely, "I'm so sorry. I hope you find one. Thank you so much for your patience." And then he smiled, reached out and touched my shoulder, and wished me a good evening. And he meant it.

I walked away feeling incredibly cared for, and at peace.

Maybe it wasn't a big deal to him. Maybe he's a Christian and behaving that way comes naturally as a result of the work Jesus has done in his heart. Maybe he was simply a kind person. I don't know. But in the middle of a crazy workday, he took the time to see me - not as yet another consumer who needed something, but as a person - and to wish me well.

It mattered. It made a difference to my day. And it made me wonder: how many dozens of opportunities do we have each day to make that kind of a difference, in His Name?

God, make me the kind of person that leaves others feeling that cared for, the kind of person who speaks your peace into the lives of others. Amen.

And friends - may grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Peter 1:2) Amen.

Santa Claus is blogging again!!!

It's true!

and Santa, it seems, is keeping up with the times. now, you can even follow him on Twitter.

advent journeys: hope

As previously observed, I love Advent. Currently serving at a non-denominational church that doesn't follow the liturgical calendar, I find myself missing the rhythm of it, especially this time of year. So I decided a couple of weeks ago to do what little I could about it: I bought a book.

My friend Amanda and I are reading The Uncluttered Heart by Beth A. Richardson. It's a daily devotional book that starts the first Sunday of Advent and runs straight thru the 12th day of Christmas. Only 4 days in, I can tell already that it is going to be a sweet few weeks with the Lord. (If you're interested, check out Beth's book and the associated website: unclutteredheart.org - it would be fun if all of us read it together - and every reading stands alone, so you can just hop in, and catch up later.)

So the first week of Advent is about hope....

It was a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about how I was looking for something. I think, in retrospect, that maybe what I was looking for was hope. I hadn't quite realized that I'd lost it. I knew I felt a little stifled, purposeless, not-quite-myself - but I hadn't realized how hopeless I felt, and that hopelessness was ultimately at the root of the deep sadness I felt. Then, this past Sunday, the first Sunday in Advent, I sat down and I read about hope. And I skimmed through the discussion guide and noticed the question: "what are you hoping for this week?" I danced around it. Finally admitted that I was afraid to verbalize what I am really hoping for. Realized this was probably a problem. And went to church.

I had the privilege of worshiping in another country this weekend. I went home over Thanksgiving to visit my family out East and drove back through Canada, and stayed with one of my bestest friends, Cheryl. Cheryl is on staff at a very large church in Toronto that was founded with a huge heart for missions. (My kind of church.) :) This particular morning, they had a guest teacher: born in Wales, missionary to South Africa and several other places, now living in Canada, probably in his 70s, and not a single worry line in his forehead visible onstage. The joy of the Lord shines from within this man - and his passion for seeing the lost come to Jesus pervaded every word of his message.

And it was contagious.

As I listened to him speak about the heart of our Good Shepherd for His lost sheep, and the privilege that we have in being his agents that we so often forsake in what John Stott calls "our guilty silence" - simply not speaking of Jesus - I realized (again) that I have to teach.

It's an interesting grammatical construction that - "I have to..." I could have said "I must." And indeed, I must. It's what I'm called to do. But I have it.... it's been given to me. Teaching. The desire to teach. I'm stifled because I'm not doing it. As a worship leader, I got to teach a little bit. I've missed that. I do teach, here and there. In conversations with people, through letters/emails I write, etc. But that's just like icing on a proverbial cake, you know? The real cake is seriously teaching. Maybe even - dare I say it? - preaching.

I know this isn't new. I've known this for awhile. I've written about it here a number of times, I'm sure. But I've been so stuck in the rut of daily routine that I started to forget that this current daily routine wasn't meant to be a pattern for the rest of my days, but is rather still just a stopping spot - a place to fuel up and ready myself for the next stage of the journey. I wasn't supposed to put down roots so deep that I settled in too comfortably - but I'd started to do that, in spite of a niggling feeling that something didn't feel quite right. I'd settled for "this." I let go of the vision. Proverbs 29:18 says that for lack of vision, people perish - and I've felt the truth of that these past few weeks. In context that verse actually means that without the revelation of God's Word we'd all be dead (and it goes on to say that he who has the law is happy) - but the truth is we need God's word over our lives too. His written Word and His Son are enough - but the God who made dolphins to swim faster than they should be able to and bees to fly when they shouldn't be able to also made us, and has specific plans for us, and we need to be in communion with Him to know what they are. He designed each of us uniquely. And troubled Himself to arrange our moments and our days so that in interacting with each other we would learn and grow and change and become ultimately even more like Him. His design is incredible.

And it was no mistake that His design landed me in Canada on Sunday, hearing a man of God who'd been to South Africa. He didn't even talk about it - but he'd been there. He'd been where I'm going someday. And he believed in the importance of bringing creativity to the mission field, and went out of his way to mention it.

Somewhere out there is a place that fits me, I am sure of it. Or maybe, given this wanderlust, there are several, lol. I don't know where they are, or what they look like, or how I will get there. But I know that I will.

Because on Sunday, I got my hope back. I'm not even sure, really, how it happened. It just did. God gave me hope.

One of Cheryl's friends asked me if I'd been not listening to God or if I'd just been waiting for the pieces to fall into place. It was a good question. It seems I keep forgetting what God has said until reminded (tho being able to search my own blog for themes does come in handy for that; now if only my handwritten journals had that feature, lol!) - but really, I think I've just been waiting. And it feels like maybe that waiting is very close to an end now. Maybe.

It's Advent. The season of waiting. But it's only a season - and that for which we are waiting - it's just around the corner. Jesus is coming. He came, and He's here - and He's coming again.

Spera in Deo.

Amen.

icons, advent, chocolate, and rest

a fellow blogger posted a brief history of the "christian fish" earlier this week, and wondered how other people felt about Christian symbols in general, and i've been thinking about icons ever since.

i'll admit to being extremely influenced by Madeleine L'Engle's perspective on icons - her thoughts on the subject in A Circle of Quiet make much sense to me. it was Madeleine who helped me to understand the difference between icons and idols. an idol is something other than God that you worship, in and of itself. an icon points you to God. icons can become idols if we become too attached to them - if you were around for the battle of the shoes (about a year and a half ago), you know that i've wrestled with that. but the possibility that an icon can become an idol doesn't make an icon bad. in fact, i'd argue that we need them, whether or not we're aware that we need - or have - them, because without them, we are far too prone to get bogged down in the specific details of our lives and forget the bigger picture in which we live.

i love it when i see a fish on the back of someone's car. i love it more when i see a cross at the top of a church steeple, or on the back wall of an altar. or a Bible in the front seat of someone's car or in their briefcase. these symbols are icons - momentary and solid reminders that we are not alone - that there is a God who loves and saves us and is intimately involved in the details of our lives. reminders that we have an international family whose experiences, while different than ours in some ways, are nevertheless common to man - we are all, together, sinful, fallen, in need of grace. and we can all, together, find it.

there are words that are icons for me. hope. mercy. grace. peace. love. joy. freedom. there are paintings, poems, songs, books, people. doorways into God's presence.

liturgy is one of them. and i miss it.

i read Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith this week. there's a chapter where she talks about waiting and advent and the darkness that there is before Christ's coming, and it got me thinking about Christmas (which is what, like 12 weeks away now?!). and how Christmas itself is a doorway into something greater - Christ came, yes - and He is coming again. Christmas remembers, and reaches forward into future hope. and Advent is the path to Christmas.

traditionally, Advent is the four weeks prior to Christmas. realistically, Advent is a way of life. it's an active waiting, in expectation of what God will do, with peace, hope, love and joy - in the face of all that isn't any of those things. it is so much more than four weeks - tho we take four weeks to remember it.

i love that in some countries Advent calendars are made with chocolate behind all the little calendar doors. chocolate is an icon, too - a reminder that some things do always make you feel better. (Jesus and chocolate, right?)

so i am off to a day of actively waiting on the Lord: chocolate bar in hand; Bible, journal, pen; hope, peace, love, and joy seemingly elusive at times, but always there. there were too many details, too many distractions, too many things this week that cluttered the smaller picture and took my vision away from the bigger and better one. time to realign. to be in Sabbath rest.

and this very rest itself points me to Jesus. how good He was to tell us we would need this.

a good night

Merry Christmas, dear friends.

It's been the most wonderful night. Just this afternoon, I was sitting on my friend Katie's couch, reminiscing about good old-fashioned candelight Christmas Eve services, and how much I miss them. Growing up, it was always one of my favorite services of the year, mostly because of all the singing, and when you add in all the New England charm of snow-covered slate walkways and an evergreen-bedecked church built over 150 years ago - well, it's hard for anything to win out over that sort of childhood memory/ritual, and the "Cosmic Christmas" service that I went to last night with some friends at a large church nearby left me feeling like I still needed to go somewhere to worship... but I didn't know where to go, and I had plans to go out for dinner with my good friend Kim...

But enter God's perfect plan. Kim and I had not done our research well, and almost everywhere we went in search of dinner was closed, or just closing as we got there. We ended up at a McDonald's drive-thru, just 3/4 of an hour before they closed. We drove around and looked at Christmas lights while we ate (another Christmas tradition from my childhood that I love) - and then we went to church. Kim's parents go to a UCC church a couple towns over, and we joined them for their Christmas Eve service.

It was perfect. Bells chiming. Snow-covered trees. Evergreens hung everywhere. Candles in the windows. A beautiful stained-glass window as a focal-point of the room, called the Bethlehem window - depicting the town with the star shedding light upon it - and the cross on the altar under it in just the right place to connect the imagery. The table with "In Remembrance of Me" inscribed upon it. The advent wreath with peace, hope, love, and joy already lit. The carols, the choir, the organ, a real piano. And liturgy!!! Calls and responses. The Lord's prayer. An actual offertory. A benediction. And the candlelit singing of Silent Night. None of this fire-code nonsense and glow-stick substitute baloney. REAL candles, with actual flames. And an amusing safety demonstration by the pastor...

And it was all real. You could tell. The pastor meant what he said. At least most of the choir loved being there. And there were people there who loved each other. Could I have done without the running commentary from the lady behind me? Well, yes, but it was funny, and I almost busted up laughing when someone back there went horribly off-key. And it kept me grounded in the reality that the church really is made up of people... and it's so much grace that God loves us all.

It was a perfect evening. And NOW it is Christmas. It didn't feel like it earlier today. But now it is. (Thank You...)

So, Merry Christmas, to all of you. May peace and harmony reign where you are tonight, in your hearts, and in your minds, and in your souls. May you experience the reality this day of Emmanuel, God with us. And may you find joy with every new dawn - for each one brings new mercies.

Merry Christmas, dear friends... and to all, mmmm..... a good night. :)

i love Christmas...

Happy Epiphany, by the way. :)

Tripping about the blogosphere over Christmas break, I came across two posts on one of my favorite blogs, by a gifted writer named Kathryn in the UK. Her blog is called Good In Parts, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. These posts in particular are brilliant, tho, and well worth your time:

Dark Nights - a prayer for the winter solstice - literally, but figuratively as well. We've all had them - dark nights when we forget what light looks like for a minute. But God is with us.

Such a Long Journey - reflections on the journeys taken in the Christmas story as told in the gospel of St. Luke. This is truly beautiful.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Santa Claus does exist!!!

and i can prove it. :)

Santa, in the true spirit of modernity, has started his own blog.

And if it's on the internet, it must be true, right? :)

Sacred Space - Christmas 2007

By now most of you know that worship is my passion. Sacred Space is intricately wrapped up in that. Some days I think that if I could create a dream job for myself, I would be a "Sacred Space Consultant" and travel around the world teaching churches how to create Sacred Space. (Then I get to the tail end of the event and it takes me a week to recover and I start to rethink that...) :)

Sacred Space is an out-of-the-box, multi-station, interactive worship event. (Or so I've heard it described.) Really, it's just what it sounds like - sacred, and spacial. Spacial both in terms of physical space, and in terms of creating space in our hearts for God to speak - or rather, to listen to what He is speaking. This was my 5th event, and was by far the one for which I've been most excited. What made it different is that this time, I had an entire team of people who were committed, invested, and passionate about making it happen - usually it's just me and one or two other people - so we were able to do more, and it was far more creative than anything I could have come up with on my own. Watching people discover their creativity and put it into action was really cool - both in the preparation for the event and during the actual service. But here, let me walk you through the night, and you'll see what I mean. :)

As you walked up to the church, there were carolers singing just outside the church doors to greet you with a bit of Christmas cheer. People milled about the lobby talking, swiping cookies from the kitchen, catching up, and listening to Christmas music. At 7:00pm, the song we play as our 20something's weekly cue to find a seat came on, and we all piled into the sanctuary - to find there were very few chairs. There were some towards the front grouped in coffee-house style around tables decorated with vases full of pinecones and ribbons, and others set up around larger tables in the back that were piled high with craft supplies. We sat where we could, and some stood. Our pastor welcomed us, challenged us to come like Martha's sister Mary and sit at Christ's feet for awhile, and the band kicked us off into a short set of Christmas songs and praise choruses. We heard the Christmas story straight from Luke 2, and then our other teaching pastor explained the goal of the night, and turned us loose to worship as we wished/felt led, encouraging us to explore avenues of worship that might not feel the most natural to us, and to discover how God might speak to us as we focused on re-discovering the wonder of Christ's coming.

Most people (not surprisingly) made a beeline for the station we called "Life Together: Community as Worship." Coffee, cocoa, and Christmas cookies, and the chance to catch up with old friends (as several of our college students are beginning to come home for the holidays).

Others took off for a number of other stations. I wish you could have seen it. Words will never do it justice - but here are some brief descriptions...

In the main sanctuary, the Christmas story was scrolling across the screens, and there were four stations set up. In the front to the left was a four foot high, four foot long wall built and painted by a couple of guys in our community that we call our wailing wall - people can come and write out their hearts' cries to the Lord and nail them to the wall. We also post a brief history of the real wall in Jerusalem, so that people will know the significance of the tradition in which they are, in their own way, participating.

To the right was a table piled high with packages, topped by a box labeled "The Gift Box." Gift tags were available on which you could write your gift to God (time, resources, your heart...) and drop it in the box. Next to the table was a Christmas tree hung with dozens of crosses made of nails and wire, bearing gift tags that read "To: you; From: Jesus - John 3:16" - and worshipers were invited to take one home with them in remembrance of the night, and of the ultimate Gift.

In the back were 3 tables in a station called the Creative Corner. Watercolor paints, crayons and paper, playdough, and a basket full of scrolls and pens for poetry were available for anyone who wished to paint, shape or write their praise. Some of the paintings our community turned out are simply amazing.

There were also 2 tables for a station called "The Invitation" - piles of card-making and letter-writing supplies were available for those who wished to reflect on the invitational aspect of God's character and to model it by writing letters/notes to encourage people.

Down the main hallway just off the lobby are all our classrooms, and there were stations set up in each of those rooms as well. The first room on the right was our Reflection Room. Journals and Bibles were available on a shelf, and there were piles of blankets and pillows and comfy couches, in a room lit by candles and white Christmas lights, made brighter by the occasional mirrors that reflected the lights in front of them. I walked by at one point, and three or four people were curled up under blankets, reading and journaling, and it looked so warm and cozy and inviting!

The next room on the right was called Away In A Manger: Piecing Together the Mystery of Christ's Coming. One of the girls had found a great puzzle with 20 scenes on it - a few of us worked on it together the week prior to Sacred Space and that was a lot of fun - and then she wrote out a number of biblical prophecies regarding the coming of Christ on the puzzle, and put each "scene" with its verse in a gift bag in a manger full of hay. This room was lit by table lamps and Christmas lights, and it was fun to see people grouped around tables putting sections of the puzzle together - together - and learning both from the experience and from the verses on the puzzle about how God designed this incredible Story.

At the end of the hall is our "theatre" room - and punk rock Christmas music themed what we called "Winter Wonderland." Around the room stood a variety of Christmas lawn ornaments - snowmen, etc. The industrial ceiling was wrapped with lights and hung with paper snowflakes. The floor was covered in shredded paper to simulate snow, and piles of wadded up newspapers served as imitation snowballs. (We'd hoped to do this station outside, but the snow came on Tuesday - so we went for warm and indoors instead.) :) I missed it, but I hear the snowball fights were a ton of fun. :) There was also a table off to the side where you could read Psalm 139 and make a snowflake to represent your uniqueness in the body of Christ.

Our outdoor station was my favorite. Just across from the main entrance to the church is a field that's still mildly lit by the lamps in the parking lot, but dark enough you can see the stars yet, too. Out in the field was a manger and a cross, and the opportunity to go for a walk and reflect on those two symbols of our faith and their significance. At the end of the time alloted for stations, we gathered back together in the sanctuary and moved into a time of worship and communion, but I decided to duck out for a minute to visit that station, since I hadn't been there yet - and I walked out the door to see the cross up on the hill as the band was singing about the healing that comes through the cross, and it was a beautiful, sacred moment.

I'm not sure anything else in the night topped it, tho a close second was when I walked through the sanctuary at one point, and saw a girl sitting alone at the poetry corner, writing away with such a look of sheer joy on her face that it inspired me to worship in my own heart as well.

And this is why I love Sacred Space so much. I will never know all that God did in and through the people who were there - but I know He was at work - and I know that we encountered Him in some pretty amazing and creative ways. I can't think of much that brings me more joy than that. :)